Skip to content

cavare

to extract

verb kah-VAH-reh Rare
Body & Health Health & Illness

Origin: From Latin cavare (to hollow out), from cavus (hollow).

Also means

to pull out

Usage Note

Cavare means to extract or pull something out — cavare un dente (to pull a tooth), cavare acqua da una roccia (to squeeze water from a stone, i.e. to do the impossible). The idiom cavarsela (reflexive) is very common in everyday speech and means 'to manage', 'to get by', or 'to get out of a scrape': me la cavo abbastanza bene ('I get by well enough').

Examples

"Il dentista ha cavato il dente senza dolore."

Natural Translation

The dentist extracted the tooth without pain.

Explore Italian by topic